Month: March, 2012

The Place: Fulham

The Drinks: Wine and some cocktails

The Gentleman was attractive enough, possibly even more than his original photo, which had caught my eye. He quickly suggested going out to eat, and as there was a) nothing in the house and b) the prospect of potentially coming back to the house with Mr Investment Banker for the remainder of the evening.

He picked me up in his Audi, which he rambled on about for several minutes and which I would have tuned out completely, except for the fact that everything he said was just so interesting and had the word Audi in it. Who loves a captive audience? THIS GUY!

We went for dinner at a really nice Indian place, although it would’t have been my first choice for a first date, but then again, why would anything possibly be my choice? Choice? Huh? You’re paying, so you get to tell me what I’m having, obviously. He seemed upset when I didn’t touch the lamb. I sweetly told him I was a vegetarian. Whoops.

While watching him inhale rice pudding (really, really, really unappetizing, food- and sexy-wise) he told me, between mouthfuls, “Yeah… You’ll sleep with me on the Third Date,” as if he was performing a soliloquy for the otherwise empty restaurant. Charming man! I went home in a taxi. I asked the driver to say the word “Audi” every four seconds until I landed back at home, sans-jerk!

The Place: Carnaby Street

The Drinks: Cocktails

The gentleman’s picture did him justice: was tall, fit, looked exactly like his picture. However there was one issue – the fact that his head was eight times the size of his body.

As a rule of thumb, when looking through online dating websites (or ‘going man-shopping’, as I like to call it), one has to take photographs with a grain of salt. Is he perhaps using a fisheye lens to make those shoulders look bigger? Has he superimposed that chin-dimple? Does he really have a unicorn horn, or has he just photoshopped that in to make himself look better? It’s important to view and review the pictures before committing to meeting a possible/probable mentalist IRL. However, this one got the better of me.

Sometimes, if someone’s using a screenshot from Skype, it makes them seem as though their head is quite a lot bigger, being that it is in the foreground of the image. And so you think, not a bad looking chap, really, and he seems nice enough on the phone and all that – so let’s do this thing! You might even choose to add in a hand-clap at that point. You’re amped.

Then take this whole hypothetical situation and make it have happened to ME, and when the gentleman shows up to meet me, he shows up with a giant head. No, that was not an issue of “perspective”, that was an issue of “reality”. There’s practically no room in the bar because his head is ballooning (bloating) with beer and his ego seems not to have taken any notice that there is no cause to be so up yourself when all you’ve got on offer is a horrible series of work-related anecdotes.

The Place: Battersea

The Drinks: Wine (for her), Water (for him)

I love a good cheap first date. It really provides the impetus to leave midway through. Key point: if a so-called ‘gentleman’ behaves in a way that is ungentlemanly, one is well within one’s rights to abscond immediately.

The gentleman arrived looking several years older (and balder) than his online portrait. Perhaps he was a reverse Dorian Gray; I’ll certainly never know. After settling into the bar of his choosing and bragging about his Porsche (keys left on the table, in case you didn’t hear it the first time and forgot to drop your knickers), he conveniently “forgets his wallet”.

What does a lady do in this instance? I don’t know, I suppose we’ll have to find one and ask her. This ‘lady’ replied, “I suppose you’ll be having tap water, then.” The conversation went downhill, as one would expect, but surely, if you’ve made such a fuss about your silly million-mph car, you can get back in it, zip back home and get your wallet, no? Well, as I said, I guess you’ll be having tap water.